


Rotten

by lovesdaryl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, mention of character deaths, mention of childhood abuse, mention of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2653856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesdaryl/pseuds/lovesdaryl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl has been keeping a secret ever since Atlanta, and it's eating him up. And recently, he's added a new one. Maybe his secrets will help him to help her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She had wrapped his ankle, his foot resting in her lap, and would even have pulled his dirty sock, seriously in need of water and a detergent, over his foot again if he hadn’t stopped her, blushing furiously. „No, no, ya don’t need ta … So good of ya to wrap my foot, ya really don’t need to …“ Flustered, he fell silent, holding his sock, his foot still cradled in her lap with both of her hands resting atop it protectively. His ankle was swollen and discolored, and he had the dismal feeling that he wouldn’t be able to ride the bike he’d found for a few days but have to sit in one of the cramped cars they had managed to get up and going. He wanted to yell in frustration, but there had really been no way for him to see the root looping up among the dead leaves covering the forest floor, just in the right position to snare his foot and take him down. His ankle was badly sprained, and he’d known that getting up after his fall, yet hadn’t done anything about it when returning to camp after his hunt the night before, nor the morning after.

Instead, he’d spent the day riding his bike with her behind him, leading their little convoy, and had topped it off by limping off to hunt again once they’d stopped to set up the tents they’d found two villages back and secure their camp for the night. By the time he’d returned to the group with three squirrels and two rabbits for the spit waiting over the fire already, he’d hardly been able to set his foot down and put his weight on it without flinching in pain, and of course everyone had noticed the moment he’d stepped out into the circle of light cast by the fire. Glenn had wordlessly handed their first aid pack to Carol and the two of them had made for his tent while Maggie had gone to work skinning his kills.

Daryl felt horrible for being helped by her yet again. He felt horrible for using up precious resources. He felt horrible for having them worrying about him. He felt horrible for leading all of them by their noses, letting them believe that he was someone that he really wasn’t. The gratitude in their eyes when they saw him coming back with food nearly killed him. The gratitude in Carol’s eyes nearly plowed him into the ground as he felt it was undeserved in the extreme.

These people didn’t owe him shit for feeding them. He felt like the worst human being ever to walk the earth, and he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to go on like this. The gentle and careful way in which she was holding his injured foot right now only served to drive home once again that he was pretending to be someone he was not, impersonating some sort of ideal that he really couldn’t even hope to aspire to, but that these people believed in nevertheless because he still wasn’t telling them the truth.

It had started while they’d still been staying at the farm. On the night she’d told him that he was as good as Shane or Rick. The night she’d fuckin’ kissed him to show him how much she appreciated him looking for her lost daughter. Hearing that he was as good as the others did something to him. The faith she placed in him, so undeserved, had his conscience screaming, even as he froze with her lips on his temple.

She had no idea who he was. She had no idea what him and Merle had been planning to do. It was his extra dirty little secret, his to keep now because Merle had been lost in Atlanta the day they’d meant to be their last one with the group. When Merle hadn’t returned and they hadn’t found him on that roof, Daryl had figured that his chances would be better if he stayed with the group, so that was what he’d done, following Rick and Shane like a docile little dog in hopes of getting tossed a bone every now and then.

His bones consisted of praise, acceptance and respect, either from Rick or Shane or anyone, really - even that annoying little brat, Carl, might work. Appreciation of any kind worked like fuel for him. As he had never gotten any of that in his pre-apocalypse life he craved it all the more, craved acceptance and respect to balance the little demon inside his head screeching at him that he was worth less than shit - and these people gave him what he craved.

They thanked him for bringing in food, for standing watch, for going on runs. After meals, they told him how good the meat had tasted, and that they had full bellies thanks to him, and that they would have needed to go hungry so as to leave enough for the kids in the group if it hadn’t been for him. He was made to feel like a valued, and valuable, contributing and respected member of this group, which was completely overwhelming him. He had never been made to feel like that ever before in his life. His life before had consisted of violence and contemptuous sideways glances and whispered remarks behind his back. And now, all of a sudden, his skills that had helped him survive long before now were being appreciated and singled him out from the others - he alone, out of all of them, knew how to get fresh food.

But that wasn’t the only thing that singled him out, was it?

This was just the one thing they knew about.

With Merle gone now, he was the only one who knew what they had been planning to do, and that knowledge, his secret, gained a ton of weight every time someone thanked him, or gave him a grateful look, or even so much as gave him the time of day.

Praise, acceptance, and respect.

For someone who had been planning to …

Infinitely gently, she took his injured foot and set it on the ground, next to his waiting boot, and looked up at him, her eyes full of worry and reproach. „You need to take better care of yourself!“ She carefully ran one hand over his bandaged ankle, freaking caressing it, he realized, before getting up and dusting herself off.

Her words hurt worse than if she’d put a knife through his heart.

His dirty secret throbbed within him, rotten, ripe, ready to explode.

How could he ever tell her?

Now that he had so much to lose?


	2. Chapter 2

And now there was that other thing. One more secret that he was keeping from her, from all of them, really, but her the most. Because while the others would certainly be affected by it in some way - at least the members of his prison family that had known him for some time - she would be disappointed in him. 

She would feel hurt.

She would feel that he had let her down by letting himself slide.

That he had allowed himself to give up the ground he had fought so hard to gain, always supported by her, where she had been strong and would have expected no less of him.

After losing Beth, he’d believed that he was really the only one left, just as she’d said at that damn moonshine shack. He hadn’t seen anyone else make it out the day of the attack, they hadn’t encountered anyone or seen any tracks or leads apart from the half eaten bodies that had made Beth cry. For all intents and purposes, he had been the only survivor of their family, the one thing that he had never wanted to be. He had truly been at his lowest when Joe and his men had shown up, and he had almost hoped that they would end it for him there and then. What good was fighting, when there was nobody left to fight for? But as soon as that asshole behind him had claimed his vest because of its wings, his survival instinct had kicked in full force.

Now, of course, he was glad that it had - not least because it would have broken her heart to find all of their family but him, and not know what had truly become of him.

If he had just died, or if he had turned.

If she might need to be prepared for running across his walker and have to put him down.

Then again, it would also have broken her heart to see him with that group. See him not taking care of himself at all again. Not searching for food, not eating enough, rarely going out to hunt, because the whole claiming shit seemed so ridiculous to him.

Not sleeping enough because his mind kept running around in circles over what he had done wrong at the prison, about what he should have done, about how he should really have looked for her right after getting out instead of keeping his head up his goddamn ass and just vegetating for … How long had it been? A week? Ten days?

He’d really gone back to being Daryl before the world went to hell, and she would not have liked to see him like that at all, he knew that. He’d even known it while it had been happening, but had been unable to stop himself. After managing to gain some hope again in view of Beth’s unwavering optimism in the face of the gruesome events at the prison, in the wake of seeing her father getting beheaded with their friend’s sword, having her taken away from him without being able to protect her, to do anything about it, had really thrown him back … 

No.

It had beaten him down.

Broken him.

And he’d let it.

It had come on top of so many blows over such a short time that he had been unable to take it. And so he had allowed himself to drift through the days, watching those shitheads taking it out on each other, talking dirty about the women they’d encountered, and about what they had done to them, laughing about killing the men who had tried to protect those women, and talking about some dude that had killed one of their own in some house they had stayed in not too long ago.

He had played their dirty game. He had „claimed“ a blanket and a plastic bag to carry it for himself on the second day because the nights were just too cold to go without anything, the way he had been trying to, and even while saying the word that had tasted foul in his mouth he had felt like a piece of shit because this was not the way things were supposed to work, even now.

A member of your group, of your family, needed something and you found it, you didn’t „claim“ it for yourself but you gave it to them. As simple as that.

And he’d had that. And the people he’d had it with had given him the feeling that he had deserved that, not just for what he contributed, but for who he was.

Seeing her at his side now, weighed down by what had happened since he’d last seen her before that run to the Veterenary College, he couldn’t but admire her strength, her resilience in the face of all that she had been through. Not only had she been exiled from the prison, banished from her family, without even being given a chance to say good-bye to any of them - to him, when Rick had to know what they were to each other - but she had obviously taken care of the two Samuels girls after the prison had fallen - until something had happened and they hadn’t made it.

He knew that she was blaming herself for losing those two girls that she had promised to take care of, even though she would have done everything in her power to save them, just as she would have done - had done - everything to save Judith. But he knew, maybe better than most of them, that no matter what you did, no matter how hard you fought, sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be and you lost, not for lack of trying but for lack of luck or for a dog barking and you falling for it because it was a goddamn dog.

But despite all of those blows that had surely cut into her soul she had remained strong, she had kept fighting, she had not given up on all of them. She had kept Judith alive and gotten all of their sorry, trusting asses out of Terminus because she was a damn survivor.

He was so fuckin’ proud of the woman she had become, or maybe she had been like that all the time and it was only now beginning to show. She was strong and caring at the same time. Tough when she needed to be, able to make the hard calls, the ones that everyone else shied away from, yet kind when there was room for it. She had adapted to this life, she was a fighter, a survivor, yet she had never lost her heart and her kindness over it despite the blows she had been dealt - blows that would have taken down anyone else; blows the likes of which had taken down Rick.

Yet something was eating her up inside and he couldn’t take it. Hated seeing her like this.

Like him.

The way he had been, before her.

Closed down, walls up, unable to open up to the people around her. Unable to talk to him, now that it was him trying to help her.

While talking had never been the thing for him, it had for her. He needed to get her to talk, to open up to him again.

Needed her to share that secret pain that was eating her before nothing was left of the woman he …

Maybe it was time for him to make that first step.


	3. Chapter 3

They were holed up in a former school. The children’s artwork decorating the room was painful to look at even for him - reminding him as it did of the „Sofia“ hand cutout that he’d seen during his formula run after Judith had been born -, and he couldn’t imagine what it was doing to Carol who had lost three girls to the apocalypse where he, if truth be told, hadn’t lost a child of his own, no matter how heartbroken he might have been after she had come out …, but only his brother. He noticed how she kept her eyes averted from the drawings on the wall, the origami giraffes on the windows and the feather birds hanging from the ceiling in the room where they had found shelter for the night.

The cars and the bike that he’d found to replace Merle’s - and how he freakin’ missed that comfortable worn down saddle! - were in the back of the building, hidden away from anyone passing on the street in front of it.

They were sharing a can of cold beans, huddling together under half a dozen blankets for warmth, and when he’d had his two spoons of food he rose, still stiff and aching from riding in the cold, and announced that he was taking first watch. They had staked out the building to decide on the best places to set up posts in, and he’d chosen the one on the third floor looking down on the back yard and the vehicles, hoping that she would join him as she had so often at the prison when he’d been on night watch.

As he got up from their nest of blankets, crossbow in hand, he already missed her warmth. She had been pressed up against his left side, always touching him at least with her knee or her elbow as if to constantly reassure herself that he was still there, that he hadn’t dissolved into thin air, that her tortured mind hadn’t made him up because she couldn’t lose him, too, on top of everything else that she’d lost. She hadn’t spoken since they had gotten off the bike, just like she hadn’t spoken to him during the two days they had been forced to ride along with Glenn, Maggie and Tara.

He could hear her getting up as well after he had taken three slow, limping steps away from the group, toward the door. Then, her voice, softly: „Four eyes see more than two. We should team up, especially at night.“ It got to him how she brought up a rational explanation for following him to his post, just in case he was still uncomfortable with all of these emotions bubbling up inside him, and still wanted to keep it from the group. He doubted they were fooling anyone, though. They hadn’t been out of each others’ sight for a single waking minute since she had found them in the woods, when always before he had been a loner, keeping a certain distance from everyone even at the prison until the very end. They would certainly have noticed the difference in his behavior.

Reaching the door, he waited for her to catch up with him before stepping out into the hallway. Closing the door, he gestured for her to join him and set out down the dark and quiet hallway. She remained silent, walking soundlessly at his side.

They ascended the stairs, him with his loaded crossbow raised in front of him, ready to fire, her with her knife at the ready and her rifle hanging down her back. When they reached the second floor they quickly checked the hallways leading left and right, making sure they were deserted, before climbing up to the third floor. They set up shop at the end of the hallway, seated on the window sill to watch the expanse behind the building, him looking out on the hallway at their backs every once in a while. She had yet to say a word to him. But while the silence would have been awkward with just about anyone else, between them it was comfortable. After all they had gone through, both individually and together, they were beyond small talk.

Settling in, he carefully stretched out his leg, taking his weight off his aching ankle. She noticed instantly that he was physically uncomfortable and cast him a quick glance. „You need help with that?“ she asked softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

„Naw, I’m fine“, he mumbled routinely and then looked back at her, smirking. In the near perfect darkness, broken only by shafts of moonlight spearing through the clouds racing across the sky, he could just make out the corners of her eyes as they briefly crinkled into laughter lines as she smiled at him, knowing full well that he wasn’t telling the truth. Catching each others’ eyes, they both saw that the laughter never reached their eyes and their faces turned serious again. Shifting in his seat, he turned his head to look out into the hallway once more. „Ankle’s fine, anyway“, he added softly.

„No, it’s not, you’re in pain“, she contradicted him. „You were limping all the way up here. Do you want me to wrap it more tightly? Is your boot hurting you?“

„I’ve hurt worse“, he grumbled, and added, almost as an afterthought: „And ya know that, too. Hell, you’re hurtin’ worse yerself right now!“ He could almost feel her eyes drilling into the side of his head as she looked at him, but didn’t turn around to meet her stare. Instead, he ostensibly remained focused on the hallway he was watching, careful not to look at her. No way was he going to push. She needed to arrive at the place where she wanted to talk about it all on her own. Forcing her down that path would only hurt her all the more, and there was no way in hell that he was going to cause her additional anguish.

She took a deep, shaky breath and he could feel her pain across the distance separating them. „Whenever you’re ready“, he mumbled soothingly. „If you’re not, you’re not. But any time you are, I’ll be there.“ The silence between them lengthened. He hooked his crossbow around the back of one of the chairs near him and pulled it closer, resting his leg on it. He all but saw her face screw up with concern, but still refrained from looking at her.

Instead, he started talking in a low, pained voice.

„I ever tell ya about why we joined the group at the quarry?“ He waited for a few heartbeats, and when she didn’t reply, he lowered his head, his hair hanging into his eyes. He had unconsciously started gnawing on his lower lip again. Bringing his hand up to his mouth, he only just managed to keep himself from gnawing on the skin of his thumb in the nick of time. With her close to him, he was able to tell when he was beginning to express his anxiety in behaviour like that, and sometimes he even managed to stop it.

When she didn’t answer - and she couldn’t, really, there was nothing that she could say to that - he continued in that same low voice. „Y’all think I’m this heroic dude who had ta take shit from Merle all the time and was just waitin’ for him ta be gone so he could start ta shine“, he murmured, his eyes still on the patches of moonlight illuminating the tiles of the hallway. Now that he had actually started to tell her, there was no way he could meet her eyes any longer - for his own sake. His cheeks were beginning to burn.

„We’d staked out the camp“, he mumbled. „We’d watched. Not in a creepy way …“ The memory of Sophia, skipping along the gravel path toward the quarry lake in the sunshine, with Carl in tow, sliced through his heart and he drew a hissing breath. „But we knew that Shane was your leader, and we knew you had provisions, and weapons, and … that was stuff we needed … so …“ He trailed off, his voice breaking. „We … That day Merle went to Atlanta with Andrea an’ T and the rest? That was supposed to be our last day at the camp, but he musta been high on some shit, so he joined that run and …“

The pain of losing Merle hit him like a sledgehammer all over again. He remembered stabbing his brother’s head at least twenty times before he’d been too exhausted from the long walk in the hot sun and … from what he’d had to do at the end of it … and had to stop, sitting back, and finally lying down in the dry grass, crying. Remembered Merle’s congealing walker blood on his hand and speckled over his face and dripping from his hair. Would Merle still be alive if he hadn’t gone to Atlanta? But where would they be? And would that, could that really preferable to what he had now?

He opted not to answer these questions, and anyway, this was not about him and Merle.

His voice still on the edge of breaking, he continued.

„If he hadn’t gone that day, we would’ve robbed the camp that same night … the night it got overrun … and would’ve left. We woulda taken everything we coulda used and just left you there. Without food. Without weapons.“ His voice was a whisper. „We would’ve killed all of you without layin’ a hand on a single one of ya.“

Just mouthing the words now, really. „You’d ALL be dead.“

Looking up at her, meeting her eyes, holding them, his own eyes burning with tears, cheeks burning with shame, heart racing, throat and chest constricting as if a hot steel band was tightening around it. „That is me. I was going to kill you.“


	4. Chapter 4

She sat in stunned silence, staring at him. Her head was reeling, and she felt as if the ground had been pulled out from under her. This wasn’t happening. She must have misheard.

And, horribly, he looked out into the hallway, then back at her, clearly assessing how she had taken the blow, and made to speak again. She raised a hand to silence him.

„Why are you telling me this?“ she asked in a toneless, lifeless, listless voice. She had indeed been among those who believed that all he needed was to step out of his brother’s shadow in order to shine, and be the man he was supposed to be, the man she knew he could be. And she realized that if Merle had shared this little tidbit during his stay at the prison she would have dismissed it as a lie to discredit his brother without giving it a second thought.

But Daryl had told her this, himself, and on the tail end of so many terrible things that had happened - but also after he had done so much for all of them, risked his life for them countless times, hunting, going out on runs, defending them at the farm, and during the first harsh winter on the road, and at the prison and after that … She couldn’t imagine why he would want to ruin the impression he had made on all of them. 

_On her. ___

__His admission had punched right through the walls she had set up around herself after Lizzie and Mika, and it _hurt _. How could one sentence that he said get to her like that, when she couldn’t even believe what he’d just told her?___ _

____There had to be a lie here somewhere - but had he lied then, or was he lying now?_ _ _ _

____There _had _to be a point to him doing this.___ _ _ _

______„Been weighin’ on my conscience ever since … we lost Merle. When he didn’t come back I thought my chances would be better if I stayed with all y’all - and after a while, there was no way I could tell … anyone … about this. It had become too … huge.“ His hand came up and he all but ripped into his thumb with his teeth. He clenched his jaw, closing his eyes, before he continued. „Once I’d started lookin’ for -„ His breath hitched in his throat and his voice turned high and thin on the last word before failing him. He was unable to say Sophia’s name out loud. His guilt over not finding her in time was still killing him._ _ _ _ _ _

______His face was a stark mask painted by moonlight and shadows when he managed to look up at her, his eyes pools of darkness. For the first time ever she noticed the ridge of a thin scar running along his left eyebrow and hooking down into his eyelid, but his hands, wrestling each other in his lap, distracted her from it at once. The anguish on his face and in his left eye, now bathed in moonlight while his right lay in shadows, tore at her._ _ _ _ _ _

_______But what if what he had said was true? ____ _ _ _ _ _

________„That night when you told me that I was as good -„ He paused, still unable to admit, even after all this time, that he might amount to something as a person, that he might be a good man. He couldn’t repeat what she’d said to him the night she’d kissed his temple. „After that? There was no way that I could ever admit what we were gonna do ta that camp.“ He sounded utterly defeated now. Slumping in on himself, he briefly glanced out at the parking lot behind the building, making sure no people and no walkers were moving in on them, before retreating into himself once again._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________She took a deep breath. She had to know. _„Why are you telling me this?“ _____ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________His entire body told her how much he _didn’t _want to talk about this, even though he himself had started it. Slowly, he lifted his head from between his hunched shoulders, then lowered it again, then raised it once more to glance up at her - yet he was unable to really meet her eyes. His guilt over what they had been planning was crushing him, right before her eyes.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________„At the time, with Merle, it was what I did. He said what we were gonna do on any given day, an’ I’d do it. Never even thought about it. Never spoke out against it. Just followed his lead“, he mumbled. „And it’s been on my mind ever since the quarry. Always felt bad about it, but bringin’ it up didn’t get any easier with time.“ Now he looked up for a moment, anguish on his face, and she knew she had been right. There _was _a point to all this. He wasn’t just telling her this to hurt her, nor to hurt himself. The pain this was causing both of them was just a side effect.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________„The thing is … There was this secret I had and it’s been tearing me apart, not talking about it, putting up this fake ass front for y’all“, he continued, still talking not to her but to his feet, his hands, the ground, anything but her. In her book, much as his admission had shocked her, he had long atoned for what he had meant to do but never carried out - but to him, this was still a monstrous crime that he didn’t feel he’d lived down. Seeing him like this, having lost all faith in himself again, hurt her deeply._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________Looking out over the parking lot to make sure that they were still safe, she carefully phrased her answer, coming to terms with her own emotions over it as she went. „You didn’t do it. Nor did Merle. And you’ve changed since then, a lot.“ She briefly thought back to the angry, aggressive man she had met at the quarry and smiled to herself. „You didn’t know any of us. We were random strangers to you that you didn’t owe a thing - like the people we now find are to us.“ She considered what she was about to say for a moment, then went on. „And you are very different from who you were then, and so was Merle, at the end. In fact, one might say that Merle sacrificed himself hoping that he might save us by doing so.“ Even though she was careful to keep her voice low and kind, trying her best to convey that she did not hold what he had just told her against him, she saw him flinch when she started speaking, as if each single word she was saying were a physical blow. She sighed. It hadn’t been enough._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________„Not doin’ it don’t excuse it - and it ain’t no excuse for lyin’ to ya all the time“, he muttered, also looking out. „But … that ain’t even what this is all about“, he added hesitantly, vaguely gesturing from himself to her and back with one hand, the other still cradling his crossbow. „What’s important is that this has been between us all this time, and it’s hurt me more than you - right?“ She nodded.„So … all in all, in the end, even though actually telling you was hard and felt terrible, I’ll feel better for admittin’ it to ya?“_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________„Daryl“, she interrupted him gently. „There’s no need to beat me over the head with this. I know where you’re going with this.“ He looked up at her like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, ready to bolt at any moment._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________A slight blush crept over his cheeks as he mumbled something about not being very subtle, and she managed to smile. And it _almost _felt like a real smile, even to her. „The thing is …“, he began again, softly, tentatively, feeling his way through uncharted territory as he went. After all, it wasn’t every day that Daryl Dixon tried to give advice to others about opening up and releasing their pain. There were no words for how beautiful she thought this was, and experiencing this was _almost _worth everything they had gone through - almost._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________When they had first met, they had both been fenced in, closed off, and hurting - hurting over different things, at different levels, but both hurting nonetheless, and probably to similar degrees. Seeing him shirtless at the farm the day he’d been injured had told her so much more about him than she had wanted to know at the time. The Daryl Dixon she had met, the adult Daryl Dixon, would never have allowed anyone to do that to him. So … it had to have been done to Daryl as a child, damaging him on a much more basic level than she had been. Where Ed’s abuse had damaged her self-confidence, Daryl had never had any chance to develop any self-confidence in the first place._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________Watching him grow beyond his limitations as a member of their family had been pure joy for her. As early as Atlanta, seeing him interact with his brother and the refugees at the quarry, comparing him with Merle, she had seen that he was different - damaged, flawed, but inherently a good man even then. And with Merle out of the picture after Atlanta, he had risen to the occasion, coming into his own, becoming so much more than she had ever believed possible, pushing his own limits, going above and beyond anything they might ever have expected of him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________________Seeing him reaching out to her now in a desperate effort to help her save herself touched her deeply, all the more so because she realized what this was costing him. He need never have told her his secret. He could have tried to forget it and taken it to his grave - because, after all, who was there to remind him of it any longer, with Merle dead? He _had _risked losing her respect and affection over this - yet in order to help her, he had accepted that risk.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________________Seeing her hurt over something that she was keeping from him had made him open up about it, if only to show her that, hard as it was, it could be done. Damaged as he was, he had learned to empathize with others, with _her _, and he was reaching out to help her, and she couldn’t let his effort go to waste. She couldn’t allow him to hurt so badly again without achieving anything.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________So she took a leap._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________„I know what you are doing here“, she whispered, and very slowly, giving him time to realize what she was doing, and giving him time to withdraw if it was too much for him to deal with right now, in a situation that was already highly emotional for both of them, she reached out and gently brushed her fingertips over the hand he had used to gesture back and forth between them. He froze, his eyes flicking up to her face, shining in the moonlight, but didn’t pull back. He saw the pain in her face, and didn’t flinch from it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________________„You must have known going in that I would forgive you for this“, she continued softly, and he nodded. „And believe me, I know that, if I told you what happened when Tyreese and I were with the girls, you would never hold what I had to do against me either. It was just … what I had to do. I had no choice. Just like you didn’t have a choice with Merle. Like you have no choice anymore today in so many situations that you get into.“ Her voice was barely audible now over his racing heartbeat and his blood pulsing in his ears. Unknowingly, she had just forgiven him for falling in with Joe and his group so easily, without even trying to resist. He had never felt this accepted, with all his flaws, in his entire fucking _life _. But she wasn’t done yet.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________„You have to believe me that I do not want this to stand between us, and that I trust you with everything in my life, everything that’s inside me. It’s not for lack of trust that I haven’t told you yet.“ Again, he nodded, and she realized that he had never assumed it was. They well and truly knew each other, down to their core. „I will tell you what happened“, she promised, her voice stronger now, and he managed to relax, with her hand still touching his. „It’s just that … even thinking about it, going there in my mind, is still too painful right now. I haven’t … processed … everything that happened, and before I’ve done that, I won’t be able to talk about it.“ Her fingers moved over his hand, closing around it, squeezing it reassuringly. „Even to you, Daryl. Even to you.“_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________Several minutes of silence passed between them, during which they both looked out again, making sure their perimeter was still safe. Finally, very softly, he answered, relieved that she had already taken that first step just by having this conversation with him._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________________________„I’ll be there. Whenever you’re ready.“_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it!


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